


The Farrow Know

by The_Amarathine_Carrion



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: A+ Parenting, A/B/O, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, But rather tame for Omegaverse imo, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Study, Child Death, Claustrophobia, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Sylvain, Omega Verse, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Sexual Content, alpha felix, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22562431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Amarathine_Carrion/pseuds/The_Amarathine_Carrion
Summary: “War always means death, but there is a difference in a death that only perpetuates the same end and one that nourishes the natural cycle of life. Omegas and Alphas and Betas be damned. He’s not fighting for a world where brothers slash at one another’s throats for the the illusion of approval. He’s fighting for a world where one’s dynamic, one’s crest, their wealth, none of it will matter.He’s fighting for love. He’s fighting for Felix.”
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 18
Kudos: 156
Collections: Omega Sylvain Week, Sylvix Prompt Challenge!!





	The Farrow Know

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [sylvix_promptmeme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/sylvix_promptmeme) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> I'd love to see omega Sylvain!! Maybe he's a late bloomer who assumes he's a beta, or maybe he's known he's an omega for a long time and has complicated feelings about it. How would being an omega affect his flirtatious nature? How would it affect his feelings on crests/crest babies?? On a scale of one to ten, how often does he think about Felix during his heats???

There is a pervading darkness that only Sylvain can see.

It swirls and rises like smoke, constantly invading him in a circular motion of choke and release so that he’s never quite empty of it and never quite full. He’s gotten so adept at hiding the way it slowly scorches him from the inside out that no one can tell. He, himself, can hardly remember when it started or how.

All he knows is the art of subjugation. It’s been drilled into him over and over and over again to the point where he can’t help but believe that there’s no power left within him to choose.

A kinder part of him wants to believe it is because of some family curse. Hatred seemed to be bred there, in the lands of Gautier, passed down through the generations of children raised to take the lives of a people whose faces they had never seen until contorted in death. Sylvain was no exception. By the time he’d entered Garreg Mach Monastery he’d fought through countless nightmares starring hands soaked in the color of his closest neighbor’s hair- a red so similar to his own that his mind had no problem conjuring his face in a collection of severed heads.

When he saw Miklan transform, Sylvain’s first thought, beyond his surprise, was that he couldn’t be that far behind.

He doesn’t tell anyone— not Dimitri, who whispers to his ghosts before he turns every corner, not Ingrid who’s given up the little she has to fight alongside her friends, even though she knows none of them have the strength to hold each other together anymore.

He certainly won’t tell Felix, who he loves with a weight that is a hundred times heavier than his own useless existence. He doesn’t know how he’s even capable of it. Every day that he spars with Felix, every time they brush shoulders on the way to the bathhouse, every meal that he spends peering at him from underneath his eyelashes, Sylvain questions whether or not he’s reliving a single, fortunate, dream.

He recognizes it’s a problem. Felix is the one person who he’d die for in a second without considering the costs. To him, there is no loss in trading the worthless, philandering, heir of Gautier for the far more politically and personally important heir of Fraldarius.

Sylvain had lucked out with a crest, but not so much with his dynamic. The only thing stopping his father from marrying his Omega son off to some perverted old noble was the fact that they were at war.

Sylvain feels selfish for praying that it won’t end so he can stay with his friends and extend his sentence. It’s nothing new, because he’s always been a horrible person— rotten to the core. He could easily die in battle tomorrow, they all could, but he’d rather go down fighting alongside them than know the cruel reality of a slow, cold, death- living with a stranger who pumps him full of pups in hopes that he’ll pop one out with a crest.

The world itself is steeped in a darkness that can’t be extinguished just by winning this war. There is no prize for Sylvain, no reward for any effort he puts forth that might help them achieve the victory. He’s just about lost his hope in Dimitri- that his Highness might remember the Fodlan he promised to create and the freedom that was snatched from Sylvain’s grasp before he knew to wrap his fingers around it. All the Prince wants now is heads and Sylvain would gladly still give his to him, except that even then he wouldn’t find rest. Dimitri would demand he haunt him.

None of this matters, of course— whether he is dreaming or wide awake, staring at black or white or all of the colors in between. When there is war, you put aside all of the darkness that squirms inside of you. You find a way to make space for more.

* * *

Sylvain has known that he was a monster for a long time, but he wasn’t the first to realize it.

Miklan dragged him through the snow at the age of five, telling him to wait at the mouth of a cave in nothing more than a thin layer of clothing and a coat that couldn’t cover his entire body as he curled up at the far edge of the wall. For three nights he went without food and company and subsisted off of very little sleep. The shadow of his quivering form was the only friend he had to talk to. He sparked a relationship with the darkness in his soul then.

When they finally found him, he learned that he’d been barely an hours walk away from the center of the Gautier estate. Sylvain went missing for four days and his father had just thought to look for him.

At the age of eight, he broke a finger when the Margrave forced him to spar with weapons he wasn’t prepared for. They weren’t created with the body of a child in mind, but Sylvain was never allowed to just be a child, was he? He was a son of Gautier and he bore the responsibility of all the crest bearing warriors who came before him, as well as the legacy he must prepare to leave behind.

He was also the second son; the one his parents were forced to create to fix their first mistake. He couldn’t lie to himself even then that he was actually wanted- that there was somebody who loved him for anything other than what he could do for them. They all made sure to remind him of his place.

“Weak!” His father snarled. “Pathetic! Even with your crest, you’ll never be strong enough to fend off the Srengi. Work harder if you want to one day still consider this your home. Do not disappoint me.”

Sylvain turns to his brother with tears dripping from the corner of his eyes. He should have learned by then that Miklan wasn’t someone he could depend on, but a child’s instinct to run toward those who are familiar to them in their moment of turmoil is difficult to defeat. Miklan merely sneered and pushes him away.

“He’s right. You should have never been born. Stop wasting my breath.”

 _Waste of breath. Waste of time. Waste of space._ Sylvain swings his arms and repeats the phrases, muttering the mantras as he watches the setting sun cause the shadows to dance across his skin. He doesn’t even deserve those, he’s starting to believe, because even the blackest caress of the sky shouldn’t want to be friends with someone like him.

* * *

A few months later, he meets Felix for the first time.

His father sends him to Fraldarius, intending for him to train with Glenn, who has already demonstrated his abilities promisingly and will be more than capable of following the family tradition of shielding his Highness. Miklan tags along, not from any desire of his own or to satisfy an expectation from his father— the Margrave simply didn’t want his children around when they weren’t being useful to him.

Glenn is far too serious for Sylvain’s liking. He strikes Sylvain down without mercy, leaving bruises and superficial cuts all over his body. Sylvain’s crest is still out of control when it activates and it doesn’t help him land a single hit. As big as he is for his age, despair makes him clumsy, and as young as they both are Glenn can see his heart isn’t in it.

“Take a break and try to learn another skill. My baby brother has been whining about swordsmanship the whole year long now. Surely you’d be able to at least show him the basics.”

Sylvain didn’t like swords, and still doesn’t, but he jumped at the opportunity to leave. He wandered off, not bothered about actually finding the younger Fraldarius. A slight smugness nestled in his chest at the sound of Miklan howling after another one of Glenn’s victories. 

He felt Felix before he saw him, a flurry of tiny fists raining against his sternum. Sylvain blinks and lowers his gaze at the obstruction. Felix continues to pound away, his assault now accompanied by high pitched noises and a face reddening from exertion. He’s wobbling on the tips of his toes reaching as high as he can, but he still can’t even come close to Sylvain’s face.

Sylvain has never seen anybody so small and cute in his life. He’s been to a few parties where the women hung toward the back, rocking their swaddled babes, but never up close like this. His thin little nose scrunches as he snarls— the roundness of his amber eyes just look frightened instead of frightening, especially with his messy low ponytail with the band nearly torn out at the nape.

He pulls the boy back by his collar and laughs at his offended expression. Felix crosses his arms and pouts when Sylvain introduces himself and tells him he’s not interested in any of his lessons.

“I want Glenn to teach me. I don’t even know you.”

Sylvain thinks that’s fair. He wouldn’t want to learn something that meant so much to him from a stranger. Besides, he doesn’t really want to be here anyway. The only place he ever really wants to be is alone in the stables with the horses. The only thing they ask him for are carrots. They ask for carrots from everyone.

“Okay. What do you want to do then?”

Felix drags Sylvain all over the estate, showing him his favorite hiding spots, stealing the food from the kitchen when the cooks aren’t watching, and running barefoot in the forest, nicking their knees on the high branches of the trees. The Fraldarius boy is wild and spirited and free and when Sylvain is with him, he is able to forget that he is any different.

“Why do you have to fight the Srengi? Are they bad?”

Felix’s eyes are round and innocuous when he asks. Sylvain shrugs, only repeating what he’s been told since he was old enough to walk around without his mother hovering her hands over his head.

“Yeah. They’re invaders. We’ve always kept them away from Fhirdiad.”

Felix scrunches his nose, trying to perfect his scowl. It’s still pretty underwhelming in Sylvain’s personal opinion, but the effort and concentration he puts into it makes him smile each time.

“But why do _you_ have to fight them? Miklan’s your older brother, right? Shouldn’t he be fighting first?”

Felix slots his fingers in between Sylvain’s as he says it, scooting closer on the branch and peering up at him in concern. His tiny hand holds so much warmth. Sylvain still hasn’t gotten used to it in the month he’s spent here with him and he has to resist the urge to flinch. Where he’s from, such a touch doesn’t exist. Hands aren’t gentle.

“Well…because I have a crest, Fe. He doesn’t. I’ve got to be the one who protects the border.”

“My father says I have a major crest…but I don’t feel like that matters. Glenn’s going to take care of Mitya so I can be a swordsman!”

Sylvain chuckles, trying to think of what he’d want to do if he wasn’t going to be Faerghus’ glorified border-man. It’s almost impossible to consider an alternative. Before Felix, thoughts like that hadn’t existed. All of the dreams his mind could invent now included him.

“What do you want to be a swordsman for?”

Felix dangles his legs as if he’s going to jump but presses his upper body closer to Sylvain instead.

“Dunno. I just want to be strong!”

It’s the last night they spend together and Felix takes a lantern into his room so that they can lay under the propped up sheets and tell each other whatever stories cross their inquisitive minds. Sylvain remembers the way the small hairs on Felix’s forehead felt when he kissed him goodnight after he blew it out. They tickle him many years later, like the strings of phantom marionettes, during sleepless nights spent waiting for the sun to direct him through yet another graveyard— in search of home again.

* * *

Felix visited Gautier a few times before Sylvain presented, and only once afterward. Sylvain begged his father to never let him come back again.

His father never agreed to anything else Sylvain asked. He doesn’t know what it was that convinced him, but if he only had one chance in a lifetime to change the Margrave’s mind he’d spend it on Felix. He’d spend all he ever had on him.

Miklan was always a menace, but once Sylvain unmistakably presented as an Omega, he made it his personal goal to torture him at every opportunity.

Broken bones were just a yearly rite of passage as far as the Gautiers were concerned. It wasn’t too unusual to come across an injury like that when you’re still growing yet training to take on men two to three times your size. Sylvain became so good at lying. It was the one thing nobody could take away from him. He lied about the things he did, the food he ate, and the women he flirted with. He lied to his brother when he laughed despite the blood running down his face.

The only time he didn’t lie is when Felix almost got hurt in his place.

In the summer of Imperial year 1174, Felix came on his own while Glenn was off training at the edge of Charon territory. Sylvain was barely 14 and had already experienced a mock heat not even a year after his presentation. It infuriated his father, who promised Sylvain would never see his lone inheritance and lamented the fact that both of his sons were unfit to wield the Lance of Ruin when he retired. Sylvain spent most of the time he had as far away from his family and even with Felix there, it felt lonely.

“I really don’t understand. You still have a crest. There’s no reason why you wouldn’t be able to use the Lance of Ruin.”

Felix speaks with all the assurance of someone who has never had to worry about their role in society. Sylvain dips his feet into the river, gathering the rocks at the bank into a pile he can pick from to skip across the water. He waits to respond until he feels Felix reach the edge of his impatience.

“I can’t fight if I’m in heat. It could come unexpectedly. Plus, an Alpha would easily be able to overpower me.”

Felix snorts angrily. “That’s ridiculous. Being an Omega doesn’t prevent you from getting stronger. Just train harder.”

Sylvain’s chest hurts thinking about the sneers of disgust on the faces of his brother and father when he’d come panting around the corner holding his stomach and complaining of feeling ill. They hadn’t told him anything about Omegas. There wasn’t a single male Omega in their family line. He was expected to be an Alpha- even Miklan had presented as one, regardless of his lack of a crest.

“I can’t train my heats away, Fe. I’m stuck with them. At least..until my dad marries me off to have crest babies.”

Felix wrinkles his nose in a far more impressive expression of distaste that he’s developed over the years. “Gross. I won’t let them do that to you, Syl.”

Sylvain shakes his head, but he does smile. He holds his hand out to Felix and the younger boy takes it, sitting beside him and inching his feet also toward the water. His grin is confident and his heart still innocent and there is nothing that Sylvain wouldn’t do to keep it that way. Their fingers remain slotted together while Felix lightly complains about how cold everything still is. It feels different this year, to Sylvain. It’s true that Gautier is cold and harsh, but nothing is ever quite as cold as it should be when he’s with Felix.

“What the hell are you two doing?!”

Sylvain closes his eyes and counts to three, wishing with all his might that the owner of that voice would suddenly disappear. He smells the enraged scent the Alpha is producing and chokes back a whimper.

Felix attempts to growl beside him and Sylvain tightens his grip, whispering for him to stop. It’s too late, Miklan is already too close, and he hasn’t been able to catch them all week. Sylvain is well overdue for one of his punishments.

Miklan looks at their intertwined hands in disgust. “Not just an Omega, but now you’re gay too? Disgusting. Good thing most Alphas are men or father would break you for it.”

Sylvain’s face is already trembling from embarrassment and anger. Felix is in shock beside him, having never seen Miklan act this way before. He was incredibly subdued at Fraldarius, aware that if he stepped out of line it would cost him dearly, so he just came off as moody there.

“I..I’m not! Gay, that is..”

He didn’t think he was. He’d never really considered anything romantic or sexual beyond the thrill of the game. Girls were just easier to come by and simpler to explain.

“Don’t lie to me! Why are you holding his hand?”

Sylvain retracts as if he’s been burned, pulling his arms inward to cradle his abdomen in an instinctual act of protection. He tries to think of a way to save face in front of Felix while also avoiding further agitating Miklan. They were far away from the eyes and ears of the servants of Gautier. No one would come to help them if he completely lost his temper.

“We just do that! He’s my best friend..”

Miklan rushes forward, grabbing Sylvain by the collar and pulling him up. His breath is a hot warning in the younger Gautier’s face. Sylvain doesn’t dare say anything else until he’s finished.

“Little Omegas like you don’t get to have _best friends._ Goddess damned, you still smell disgusting. Why couldn’t you have just stayed at Fraldarius this summer instead?”

Felix growls at the mention of his family name, getting up and pushing uselessly against Miklan’s chest.

“Sylvain doesn’t smell disgusting!! You’re disgusting! How dare you treat your brother this way?” 

Miklan grabs onto Felix’s collar with his other hand, easily pulling him off the ground and close to his snarling face.

“Of course you wouldn’t smell anything, _pipsqueak_. You’d better hope you present as an Alpha so you aren’t shipped off a few years after this one to become another baby making factory. A major crest like the one you’ve got would bring you to the top of the market.”

Sylvain snaps, terror and anger supplying the adrenaline he needs to break free in the distraction. He punches Miklan in the nose and it actually connects— hard. He grabs Felix in the confusion and starts running with no destination in mind. His brother was a coward when there was an audience, but there was no denying his cruelty in private. They just needed to find somebody and they’d be safe again.

Felix protests behind him as Sylvain continues to pull them forward. He doesn’t recognize where he’s headed, but it still looks deserted. They’ve reached an empty field, nondescript except for the dusty abandoned mounds of failed agriculture and a well that’s seen it’s better years decades before either of them were born.

“Brats!! I’ll kill you!”

Miklan’s voice is closer than Sylvain would ever want it to be. Felix is dragging behind him and he turns around to check on the situation just to see Felix’s face erupt in pain when Miklan crushes his shoulder, throwing him to the side and advancing toward his brother again.

“Felix!!”

Sylvain cranes around Miklan’s furious face, trying to find Felix and make sure he’s okay. Felix groans on the ground, holding his shoulder and staring at a scrape on his knee but seems otherwise unharmed.

Sylvain sighs in relief, not even worrying about how Miklan is now dragging him mercilessly through the dirt. He coughs and chokes on the dust but knows the Alpha won’t actually be able to kill him. It’s too much work for where they are and he’d have to kill Felix too, which had much more serious consequences.

He doesn’t think anything of his own survival until he feels himself tipping backward from the edge of the well and into the darkness.

The sound of Felix screaming and Miklan’s cruel laughter is the last thing he remembers before he’s scrambling to find some way to survive the fall. He grasps fecklessly at the air, trying his hardest to find a jut in the stones and finally settles for preparing to brace himself on his arms and legs when he reaches the bottom.

The well is bone dry and Sylvain’s fortune goes both ways. He doesn’t have to worry about drowning, but on the other hand, his arm is bent at an angle he’s learned by now means a very bad thing and the rest of his body is so sore he’s not sure he can move.

His head feels like it is moments away from bursting. Keeping his eyes open proves to be an impossible task as even the black pit around him is split in all different directions, making him dizzy and confused.

Sylvain focuses on breathing and remaining still. Soon his senses begin to return to him. He hears a distressed sound coming from above, which starts as a murmur, but slowly increases in volume until he realizes what it is. Felix is crying.

Sylvain groans, unsure of what to do with this information. He coughs, testing his voice, making it louder in succession until Felix gasps and starts screaming his name.

“Syl!! Please don’t die! I.. I’m going to save you!”

Sylvain’s eyes flutter open and he strains to raise his head to take in the narrow source of light so high above him that he cannot begin to guess how far away from Felix he is. He’s going to die here. He’s going to die alone if Felix leaves him. He barely knows where they are. There’s nobody he’ll be able to find that can help nearby.

He releases a strangled sob, hoping that Felix can hear it and that by the time he responds he’ll have figured out how to make words again. There is no reaction.

Sylvain discovers that his breathing is the first thing to return to full capacity just before he begins to hyperventilate. He can’t see the walls from where he is, but he swears he feels them closing in. It’s a ridiculous notion, but could he somehow be crushed to death?

The air is dank and foul down here, even though there is no sign of moisture. It will smell even worse with the addition of his corpse. He swallows a sob, which breaks through within his next few breaths anyway. He raises his unaffected wrist to wipe the tears away. He wants to see Felix again and hold his hand before he dies. He doesn’t know how long it will take him. It seems like it took such little time for the panic to set in.

“Syl!! Sylvain!! Please tell me you’re still alive!”

Sylvain blinks, staring at the light like if he squinted long enough he would see the shape of Felix materialize. He startles as he senses more than sees the thick brown rope dangling very near to his face.

“F..Felix.. Felix!”

Sylvain finally finds his voice and he uses it to scream Felix’s name, not even for the benefit of assuring him that he’s alive, but just because it is the only name he can think of while he’s so terrified.

“Grab the rope! Hurry!”

Sylvain physically feels his chest sink with the horror of his reality. It won’t work. Felix is too small, and he can barely support himself with one arm as it is. He’ll probably end up tumbling in after him and Sylvain can’t allow that to happen.

“It’s okay! Glenn came back to get me! He’ll get you out!”

Sylvain is dazed by the turn of events, and without thinking, grabs the rope, twisting and dragging his body into a position that won’t hurt as he swings through the air. He does indeed hear the deep grunting of someone who sounds older and stronger than Felix coming in clearer as he’s hoisted higher, until he’s finally grabbed by Felix’s shaking hands and pulled forward into the daylight again.

Glenn immediately gathers him into his arms and Sylvain remembers nothing from that point on until he awakens again in a bed with Felix’s hot tears dribbling down his neck into a rather impressive pool left in his collarbone.

“ _Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die_.” Felix whispers in a tone that breaks his heart. Sylvain shifts, bringing his hand up to pet his hair and Felix sniffs, jumping a bit, before burying himself deeper into his neck.

“I’m not going to die and leave you behind, Fe. Promise.”

* * *

Sylvain’s promise is harder to keep with each coming year.

By the time Emperor Edelgard declares war the Margrave Gautier has long since passed his glory days, and sickness takes him more often than not. With Miklan dead and no other heir to rely on, Sylvain is forced to pick up the Lance of Ruin and head to the border. He fights with a fervor unexpected from an Omega and is careful to mask his scent with suppressants so his enemies hardly pick up on it.

He surrounds himself with a battalion just in case they catch him off guard and try to intimidate him with their pheromones, but Sylvain has had a lot of practice breaking through them as it is.

Dimitri and Felix would take turns during their year at the Monastery releasing all of their different scents. At first, it was overwhelming and he cowered in a submissive manner that embarrassed him so much he couldn’t even fully recall the sessions, but soon he was sparring through everything while barely noticing it.

Sylvain spent two heats there- one before Felix presented as an Alpha, and one after.

The first was bad enough. Even with all of the Alphas temporarily relocated to the first floor whenever he or any of the other Omegas went into heat, Sylvain could smell Felix’s and Dimitri’s scents through the walls. He couldn’t even make it past the second day before he begged Manuela to ask them for some of their clothes to nest with. She returned with a pile of them, at least one item each from all of his friends.

Sylvain was touched by their generosity. That heat went by much easier than some of his previous ones with the soothing combination of all the scents of the people he’d come to trust. He chose one of Felix’s larger shirts and left it on the whole time, even if it meant he was a little hotter than usual. It was a mild discomfort forgotten in the pleasure of Felix’s scent clinging so closely to his skin- so closely to the gland on his neck.

He still longed for the real Felix. He wanted to slot his fingers in between Felix’s in a familiar act of intimacy, even though it had been years since they’d done that. He wanted to bring their hands to his sweaty chest and show him how his heart pounds when he thinks about him. He whined as he worked himself up into a frenzy over and over again, nosing around in the darkest hours of the night hoping to find Felix there, even if it was only to watch over him.

When it was over, Felix told him to keep the shirt, despite how thoroughly Sylvain washed it. Sylvain was surprised to see him blush when he brought up the fact that it was too clean now and Felix would have to work his scent back into it in order for it to serve it’s proper purpose.

“Fine!” Felix snaps as he snatches it back, rubbing his face and neck all over it until the heady smell of Alpha saturated it once again. “There. Satisfied?”

“I’d be even more satisfied if you gave me the real thing next time, Fe.”

Sylvain purrs jokingly at first, but his smile falters as he sees how uncomfortable he’s made Felix. He wasn’t really lying, of course, he’d wanted Felix for years now, but perhaps he’d made it too obvious. He didn’t want to confess his love in that way.

Felix refuses to meet his eyes, and the way his head is tilted puts his red tinged ears on display. Sylvain gawks at him, scarcely believing such a comment didn’t enrage him, but somehow made him genuinely introspective.

“I’ll consider it.”

_He’ll what now??_

Felix does visit him, on the third night of his second heat.

It’s not entirely a dissolution, nor is it a salvation. Felix picks the lock on his door and scares him halfway out of his mind before Sylvain realizes why he’s so desperate to get to him.

“Felix…how the hell?”

Felix throws the pin to the side, not even bothering to shut the door. It doesn’t matter. Nobody is on the second floor this time around. Sylvain’s heat was worse than usual and it started to bother even Caspar, Marianne, and Ferdinand when they smelled his distress.

“Ashe taught me.”

It’s all he has time to say before he crushes Sylvain’s lips with his.

Sylvain has only enough lucidity left in his brain to wonder if he’s actually died. Felix growls and wraps his hand around the back of his neck arching him deeper into the kiss and _oh—_ when did he get on top of him? He’s already completely naked and he’s dreamed about this scenario a thousand times but the smell of Felix this close to him is so intoxicating that he’s certain Felix is experiencing his first rut.

“Felix..you..haaah.. you’re..”

Felix drags his fingernails down Sylvain’s chest, moaning in approval. The moonlight hardly gives Sylvain enough of a glimpse into the depths of the Alpha’s eyes, but he knows the way he is looking at him and it takes all the strength he has left to turn his head away.

It’s not something he thought through in the heat of the moment. It looks to Felix like he is exposing his scent gland and offering to be bonded.

Felix moans as his body is wracked with a shiver. He swallows loudly and runs his thumb over it, his arousal spiking even thicker in the air.

“Fuck….fuck Sylvain…”

It’s such a reverent tone. The memory of his name dripping like nectar from Felix’s lips is something that carries him through those long five years without a friend or a lover to call his own. He’d done a little more than just training during their separation. How he was able to clean all the blood of those who could be his cousins from his lance time and again was a temperance he still couldn’t wrap his mind around. He could fill every square inch of his body with the names of those he’s killed by the war’s end.

Felix places a kiss on his neck, dragging his lips downward toward his prize. Sylvain trembles underneath him, almost stupefied by his desire. He wants it, goddess does he _want_ it— to belong to Felix in a way that can never be undone, but not like this.

“Don’t.”

The single command is all that he can muster, but it’s firm and loud and it snaps them both out of their haze. Felix retracts, still sitting on top of him, now gazing in an abject horror at his wavering hands. Sylvain pants- his body responding to the proximity of an Alpha in rut so close to him even though the timing of it is terrible and all the logic in his mind is against it. Felix is silent, clearly warring with multiple sides of his own body and mind. Sylvain remains as still as possible even though he continues to produce slick and it pools uncomfortably beneath him.

“I’m so sorry, Sylvain.” Felix finally says.

He slides off and winces at the whine Sylvain can’t restrain. Everything within Sylvain aches for Felix’s touch. The thoughts are dizzying, his skin scorching, the desire in his stomach demanding Felix come claim what is his.

“Please stay…just don’t..bond me.”

The second half of his sentence is such a damn lie of a request. There’s nothing more satisfying than the thought of Felix’s teeth breaking through his skin, marking him, holding him still in the moments afterward while their bodies acclimate to their fresh connection.

Yet, Felix is so young— not that there’s much of a difference in their age, but there is in their spirit. Felix has a world waiting for him out there and Sylvain has only one purpose. He’d never ask for Felix to give himself up like that- to tie himself to a worthless failure like him.

He loves Felix so much. He can’t let him do that.

Felix’s fists tremble under a ray of phosphorus light leaking through the window. All Sylvain can see is the back of his head, sweaty hair tumbling out of his bun as he makes his way toward the door.

“I don’t think I can hold myself back from that, Syl.”

He slips away under the cover of darkness before Sylvain can recover enough from his shock to respond. The swirling black tendrils of his oldest companion ensconce him once again as he cries at the loss of a hope he’d never truly invested in until it was broken in that same moment.

* * *

The heats he experienced during his five years away from the Monastery were excruciating.

Every drop of sweat, every shiver of pleasure and pain, it’s all for Felix. It’s always for Felix. Sylvain cries out unashamedly for him. His own touch is all wrong, the voices of the Betas who come to check on him and bathe him are disquieting. Sylvain supposes he is lucky that he has access to one of the “luxurious” heat houses. His father pays for him to receive the best care possible, yet still otherwise pays his existence no mind.

He is unlucky in the fact that he has nothing left of Felix’s scent to nest with, and though Felix is not technically his Alpha in body, his heart has enough of a pull to influence him to the point of confusion. Felix’s shirt completely devoid of his scent pressed tightly against his nose causes nothing but suffering, yet the alternative is somehow worse. His instincts torture him by prolonging his heat, expecting his Alpha to come to him eventually.

The longest and most terrible of his heats was nine days of a fire more punishing than the lands of Ailell. His father calls him back from the border after he’s informed of the unusual cycle and keeps him under his watch for months. Sylvain’s stress over the situation causes him to enter yet another early and agonizing heat. The Margrave, instead of recoiling in aversion like Sylvain expected he would, reacted with glee.

“You’re at your most fertile now. I’ll send the news off to all the Lords that have expressed interest up until this point. Hurry up and finish your current assignment, then return. There will be multiple suitors to meet you here.”

Sylvain feels himself spiraling further and further down into the depths. He knew this day was coming, but he’d hoped… _Goddess_ , why didn’t he just let Felix take him back at the monastery? They could have left together, they could have been fighting side by side all this time. Even if Felix hadn’t wanted him in the same way, they could have figured something, anything, out.

Anything with Felix would have been better than this.

Sylvain sets out to the border one final time, not looking behind him at the place he dreaded calling his home for the past decade. He knows that no matter what happens, he will not return. His lance pulses in agreement with every body he pierces. He drains the life out of faces that are so familiar it is like dropping a stone to disturb his reflection in the water.

War is to man the curse of a mirror. His body count continues to crack the glass down the middle, splitting his mind and his soul in the threat that they will one day separate into shards which cannot be fused together again.

He remembers three promises in the rain one day, his head bowed in a silent prayer over the body of a boy that could not have seen a life of more than a few years, entirely filled with bloodshed, before he succumbed. He doubted the Goddess was listening to him anymore, but he was the only one left who had noticed.

He’d promised Felix he wouldn’t die, which he hadn’t. He knows Felix has stuck to the same conviction. He’d also promised he wouldn’t leave him behind- and he failed on that end.

They’d all promised to meet again at the date of the Millennium Festival. He would not fail to deliver on that one.

It’s the easiest decision he’s ever made. He lifts the boy in his arms and walks with him through the snow, whistling at his horse to follow. The body is light even in death and Sylvain somehow cannot even cry as he remembers a time where he thought Felix was the smallest thing he’d ever seen.

It’s only a few hours to dig a grave deep enough to lay him inside. Sylvain retrieves the tie he took from Felix that he keeps hidden under his armor every time he goes to battle and wraps it around a stick that he props at the head of the dirt mound. It’s soaked with sweat and blood, but it will soon dance with the wind like the branches of the wizened skeleton trees, biding their time until Spring comes to fill their barren limbs again.

Sylvain loses count of how many days in a row that he rides. His mind is a blur of the same line of thoughts, which, no matter how often they repeat, make him feel as sick as they did at the strand of their conception. He would never look into the glassy eyes of a child again. His own children would be born into a time without the looming threat of impermanence or never at all.

War always means death, but there is a difference in a death that only perpetuates the same end and one that nourishes the natural cycle of life. Omegas and Alphas and Betas be damned. He’s not fighting for a world where brothers slash at one another’s throats for the the illusion of approval. He’s fighting for a world where one’s dynamic, one’s crest, their wealth, none of it will matter.

He’s fighting for love. He’s fighting for Felix.

* * *

Felix is even more beautiful than he remembers. He’s breathtaking like this, twisting in the air with his brows raised in concentration- the cries of thieves cut short on the glint of his blade. Sylvain can hardly take his eyes off him, though he knows it’s unwise. Ingrid keeps yelling at him, drawing his focus back just in time to avoid a hit and return it in kind. In this regard, not much has changed. 

_“We’ll have time to catch up later.”_ Felix promises. Sylvain doesn’t know if that’s true. Time isn’t a commodity, and it isn’t something either of them can afford anymore, even so. Sylvain is tired of waiting. He needs to know if Felix considers the path they’re paving to have a space for them to stand together at the end.

Just like the curse that always seems to follow him, it is far too long before he gets his chance.

His Highness is ill. Everyone’s morale is weakened. Their supplies and soldiers are far and few between. It’s all the more reason Sylvain needs Felix now. He refuses to die without all of him by his side.

“Felix..”

“I know.”

There is no familiar sense of character in the tone of Felix’s interruption. Sylvain has never heard him sound so sad and defeated. He sinks down low into the bath, his raven hair fanning around him. Sylvain longs to reach out and hold him, but sits like a stone at the edge, watching him instead.

“I love you Felix. I’m sorry.”

Felix laughs bitterly. “I never thought I’d hear you apologize for such a thing.”

Sylvain twiddles his thumbs, humming, trying to pretend like his heart isn’t oozing venom into his bloodstream to try and paralyze his lips to prevent him from any further confessions.

“I am though. I’m so sorry, I’m..fuck.. I’m so sorry!”

He buries his face in his hands, tearing up silently. He didn’t even know what he was apologizing about. There were so many mistakes he’s made, so much guilt he couldn’t atone for. He didn’t mean to show the crack in his facade. He’d practiced this until he was sure he wouldn’t. Felix didn’t do well with exchanging emotions. He’d meant for it to be short and straight to the point.

The rippling sound of water causes him to detach and raise his head. A smaller hand than his own brushes his bangs back from over the arches of his surprised eyebrows. A pair of lips, so warm, so soft, so perfect, press against his and pull away before he even has time to process what’s happened. Felix rises to rest against Sylvain’s chest, wet and warm, the thunder of their heartbeats each clashing for the privilege to set the proper cadence.

“Don’t make me show you how much you mean to me again.”

Sylvain begs Felix more times than he has in his entire life that night. He drags their hands together past his heaving lungs, stopping along the way to bump their knuckles against every exposed rib. He kisses every inch of his swordsman’s skin, fearing he may never get the chance to feel the wholeness of their conjunction again.

It is not enough. It is never enough. They have not won the right to live together like this. Sylvain cannot drag his love into the darkness with him. The light of a new day must come before he seals Felix to a fate actually befitting of him.

“We can’t, Fe.”

Sylvain bucks up into him as he says it. Saliva cools on his gland, Felix’s mouth positioned perfectly to take him right above it. Felix growls an admission of pain, shaking, pulling Sylvain up and into a tight embrace.

“Idiot.. can’t you see how long I’ve waited for you?”

Sylvain thinks of every moment spent without Felix in the past five years. He thinks of the desolate snow flecked skies at the edge of Gautier and the oozing wounds he bandaged and the bodies he’s buried and he trembles to think that Felix might know the same practice. He’s stupid to try and protect him from all this. He can’t deny it’s his own selfishness and fear that drives him away from the love he’s never believed he could deserve even as he craves to chase it.

“When the war…”

“Fuck the war!” Felix spits, and the room is filled with his bitterness. The glow of arousal fades to be replaced with the flame of dissidence.

“Felix…”

Felix’s nails scratch his back and he shakes, melding them together in a pressure that borders on punishing. Sylvain howls as he searches for any more words that could convey the complex miasma bubbling around the notion of their union. Felix’s tears fall without a warning and if not for the wobble in his voice Sylvain wouldn’t know to reach over and wipe them away.

“You really are a fool.. the biggest in all of Fodlan.”

* * *

The darkness only continues to multiply with each battle. He’d thought it was bad enough tainting the soil of his own lands. It was worse to revisit the scenes of his old friends spilling their final words into his hands and burrowing their screams deep into the recesses of his head.

If they win the war this way, will there be anything left of him to give to Felix?

He goes out drinking, he tries to lay with other people to distract him- women, men, it doesn’t matter. None of them are Felix. Felix is right there, two doors away, wanting him, waiting for him, and still he refuses.

He flirts, he lies, he tries again and again. He falls against Felix’s door, laughing, not even bothering to knock because he knows Felix will let him inside. No one else is allowed to cross that threshold, and Sylvain squanders the gift as often as he dares, inviting Felix to see just how truly he has allowed the darkness to deplete him.

Felix sees him, Sylvain believes that he does, and he still eagerly wraps his body around his. Sylvain wakes up alone to bruises on his hips and splotches on his neck, the crumpled sheets surrounding him speaking of their coupling even in the swordsman’s absence.

The dance is deadlier than any skirmish he’s gone up against before, and as they approach a realistic plan for the invasion of the Empire, Sylvain is running out of excuses. If he doesn’t face his inner demons, he’ll lose no matter what the outcome is.

He crawls to Felix one last time the night before they leave. Dimitri’s room is silent- it’s occupant likely still at the cathedral or making another confession entirely between Byleth’s knees. He can smell a mixture of his own anxiety and Felix’s before the Alpha even opens the door.

“What do you want?”

Felix’s hair is down already in anticipation of sleep. His bare chest bathes under the light of the stars like they were made only to cleanse him. Sylvain drinks it in greedily, familiar heat flooding him and building a hunger in his chest.

“I want you to take me, Fe. Please, let me in. Give me… will you.. still?”

Felix yanks him through swiftly by the wrist, slamming the door behind them at the same time that their tongues battle for dominance. Sylvain goes easily, melting underneath the passion behind his every whim and landing in a daze under him on the bed.

Felix undresses him, slowly, talking to him in a low, soft, voice that makes Sylvain feel like he must be dreaming. His hands are so much rougher now, hardened by the perseverance of carving a path through flesh and bone and sin, but it’s softened in the revelation that he is using them to touch Sylvain like he is more precious than anything he’s come across in all of his years.

Sylvain begins to cry, raising his fingers to his eyes to try and hide his shame. He is so undone here, so bare before Felix. The darkness continuing to ooze from his skin while his lifelong love _worships_ his body like it is worth something more than he can conceptualize is too much to handle.

“..vain…Sylvain..”

Felix has long since stopped his ministrations. The brush of midnight bangs tickle the sense back into the Paladin as he rocks him close. How did he end up here- curled against him? When did Felix grow so large that he can hold him like this?

“Felix… I want to.. trust me, please. There’s nothing I want more than.. than to be yours.”

Felix places a finger to Sylvain’s lips, shushing him, then moves it, trailing the tears that stain his cheeks. Sylvain shudders and gasps, burying his face into the Alpha’s chest.

“You were always mine, Sylvain. All of you. Did you think me a fool— that I truly couldn’t see?”

Sylvain did not think Felix was a fool. The only fool he ever thought of was himself. He was so clouded by his anguish, the blackness he’d been fed from all sides, that he didn’t see how Felix was always there above him, rope in hand, ready to help him through bruises and broken bones and teach him how to walk beside him in the light again. He kept himself in the dark about Felix’s true feelings, even when he showed him just how unnecessary it was to deny it after how long they’d been waiting.

“I want _you,_ Sylvain. I know you and you can’t hide from me. I knew you’d act like an idiot and try to anyway.”

Sylvain laughs, because it’s true, and because the sound cuts through the black fog lifting from his body, no longer encapsulating him in it’s torturous circle. He braces his fingers on Felix’s shoulders and pulls him into a kiss.

Felix’s short reply starts as a noise of shock that sharply crescendos into a moan of affirmation. He’s quick to position them again, his hands moving to rid them of the rest of their clothes. Sylvain pulls back to gasp and catches a glint of veneration in Felix’s eyes.

“Marry me, Felix.” He rasps, capturing his mouth again.

Felix protests his lack of an ability to answer. He pushes at Sylvain’s chest, causing the older man to rumble in a barely concealed fit of laughter.

“What about the war..?”

Sylvain drags Felix’s thumb to his neck, pressing in on the point where he most desires Felix’s attention. He gulps at the hiss of longing that breaks through the swordsman’s tightly pursed lips.

“Fuck the war. Take me as I am, as you said you would. Bond me now, so I won’t die with any regrets.”

Felix wraps his arms around Sylvain’s back, raising him so they are face to face. He straddles him, and the movement of his hands coming to frame the Paladin’s face shift his hair so that it glimmers as it catches in the streaks of light. He holds firm to his gaze, making sure that their minds have quieted enough to hear each other beyond the call of their bodies.

“I’ll bond you, but neither of us are going to die.”

His thumbs glide gently over the ridge of Sylvain’s cheekbones, passing down in an arch when he reaches Sylvain’s nose and continue until they pull at his bottom lip.

“Sylvain… I’ll never regret this.” 

Neither of them say a single word more. Felix doesn’t waste them, and Sylvain is rendered speechless by now anyway. There’s a flash of white and a river of red, but for once none of it has to do with the visions of the dead. Felix raises his head again- blood on his lips, victory blazing in the low coal fire of his eyes, and Sylvain is _his._

* * *

There is nothing monstrous about the darkness in the man who loves him— and there is nothing irredeemable in the darkness he himself harbors, Sylvain has come to see.

Dimitri remembers his promise to Sylvain, finding him before he even wipes the blood of the Emperor off of Areadbhar. He crushes him in an embrace that is half an apology and half a celebration.

“There will be a place for you and Felix in this world, Sylvain. I swear it.”

Dimitri, who has created enough armies of ghosts to link arms and stretch across all of Faerghus, stands tall as a sincere King with the Archbishop Byleth by his side. Dedue and Ashe are taken into his service as knights and openly share a chamber when they are dismissed from their duties. The Savior King is relentless in ushering in a new age, personally accounting for any needs that cannot be met with his own hands.

The seasons pass, titles dissipate and merge, and where the ribbon that marked the grave of Sreng’s smallest skeleton lies only the farrow know.

Sylvain falls pregnant with their first child.

It is a tiny, trembling, thing when it is born, but it’s lungs are louder than any war cry either of it’s parents had heard before.

The exhausted Omega still finds the breath to laugh as he wipes the blood from it’s forehead as if christening them— Not as son of Gautier, nor a shield of Faerghus, but as a child fostered under the regenerative rays of Fodlan’s new dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> I am on [twitter](http://twitter.com/thefriedpipes)! Come talk more about fe3h with me 🤗


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